Sunday, April 7, 2013

A River Runs Through It.

I was hoping to go to Gold Bar today, but it looks like the weather has other plans. I awoke to the loud sound of rain pouring down on the condo. I got up for my Sunday morning dose of Meet the Press and looked outside to find a small river running down the street in front of our place. According to the news this morning we have flood watches in place. So much for Spring and going up to open up the campsite. And I was kind of looking forward to the day in the park.

My grandson is on spring break so I plan to put him to work this coming week. We have a lot of stuff that needs to get done and I think it is great that he wants to earn some extra money while helping the old man out.

As I head into retirement I am finding myself increasingly concerned about the future. As a young man (baby boomer) growing up I knew I had to make some provisions for my future and set aside for retirement. While we are not as destitute as some individuals I know, we know we must carefully plan each move once we retire to conserve our resources. That is why the discussion about the cuts to Federal programs is of such concern.

Years ago, most companies discovered that pension plans would put them in the poor house if they continued them so they did away with them. It hurt to see pension plans disappear. We put monies into them in hopes of having a future. We got money back but what do you do with it? How do you manage it? We chose 401k and when I switched jobs took that money and put it in a popular form of pension plan IRA. The IRA began something called Roth IRA which looked like a better deal so we moved our monies there using one of the larger financial organizations to manage the money we put in. Like I said, we are much better off than many people we know but after working all our lives to have one of the pieces of our financial pie being messed with by the Federal Government it is getting a little scary.

What scares me the most is my kids generation. They are still putting money into a program that doesn't look like it will last long enough for them to enjoy it and they have no choice. I think younger people should be given the opportunity to divest themselves of the mandatory pay in to the social security program and be allowed to do their own thing. What are people going to do with all their medical bills? The cost of insurance for an individual is astronomical. Retired people can't afford to purchase medical insurance so they become a burden. No wonder so many people die just after retirement. The worries you had while working are nothing compared to the future in retirement.

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